Milan, a Millionaires’ Paradise. And Then What?
Milano paradiso dei milionari. Cronaca non entusiasta di una città che sembra funzionare (ma non per tutti)
Read the original Italian version of this article on Esco quando voglio
In recent days Milan has been widely celebrated in the Italian and international press as a global success story: the city with the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, a safe haven for returning Italian wealth and foreign capital, a European hub that “made it”.
The numbers are real. The rankings are solid. And there is nothing inherently wrong with a country taking pride in its most international, competitive city.
Still, numbers alone rarely tell the full story.
This piece, now republished on ITS Journal in a condensed and contextualised version, originates from a longer reflection I first shared on my personal newsletter. There, I deliberately stepped back from the celebratory tone and tried to look at Milan not as a case study, but as a lived city — one I have known for decades, even if I have mostly experienced it intermittently, between family ties, work, and repeated returns.
The question I raised was not whether Milan is successful. It clearly is.
The question was whether this success meaningfully translates into shared wellbeing and quality of life.
Over the past decade, Milan has become extremely efficient at attracting capital, talent, and international attention. Housing prices now rival those of major European capitals, peripheral neighbourhoods have seen dramatic price increases, and the city increasingly functions as a platform for investment and short- to medium-term professional mobility. In many ways, it works very well.
But efficiency and attractiveness do not automatically produce inclusion.
What emerges instead is a city that strongly rewards the extremes: those with substantial wealth, and those who arrive temporarily with high earning potential. In between, the middle — young families, essential workers, long-term residents without inherited capital — is increasingly under pressure, often pushed out of the urban core and, gradually, out of the city altogether.
This is not a uniquely Milanese phenomenon. London, Paris, Berlin and other European cities have followed similar trajectories, each with different tools and responses. What makes Milan distinctive is how quickly this transformation has happened, and how little space is currently given to a structural debate on housing, public policy, and social balance.
The reflection published here does not reject Milan’s success, nor does it romanticise the past. It simply suggests a pause before automatic celebration. A city can be globally competitive and still fragile. It can attract wealth and yet struggle to remain a place where living — not just investing or passing through — is sustainable for many.
Milan today feels, in part, like a very effective parking place for capital. That is not necessarily a flaw. But a parking place is not the same as a shared destination.
This article is an invitation to look beyond rankings and headlines, and to ask a more uncomfortable but necessary question:
what kind of city is Milan becoming, and for whom?